Wisconsin ousts Irish from NCAA Tourney

December 10, 2005|RICHARD CROOME Special to The Tribune

COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Slow starts and a balanced Wisconsin attack proved to be the undoing of the Notre Dame volleyball team Friday night. The Irish fell to the Badgers in five games in the NCAA Tournament regional semifinals on Friday at G. Rollie White Coliseum on the campus of Texas A&M University. With the win, the No. 11 seed Wisconsin moved on to face third-seeded Washington, a 3-0 winner over Purdue, in the College Station Regional final at 5 p.m. on Saturday. Sixth-seeded Notre Dame (30-4) fell behind early in all three games the Irish lost, and never led in any of them, falling 30-25, 28-30, 30-25, 25-30, 15-9. All four of Notre Dame's losses this season went the distance. The Irish were 4-4 in matches that went five games, including a win over Dayton in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. "It's disappointing to lose, but it's even more disappointing to feel like you could have played better. We felt we didn't play well all night," Notre Dame coach Debbie Brown said. "We're disappointed, because we felt we could have played better. I think we had an uncharacteristically high (number of) errors tonight. At the same time I'm very proud of our season." Notre Dame made it to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1997 and was looking to reach the quarterfinals for the first time since 1993. A net violation and an ace by Aubrey Meierotto put the Irish in the hole in the final game. All-American Lauren Brewster got the Irish back in it momentarily at 3-2 with a block and a kill. The Badgers then took a four-point lead behind Maria Carlini, who had two of her game-high 22 kills to make it 7-3. A net violation put the Irish as close as they would get the rest of the way at 7-4. Carlini had two more blocks and Sheila Shaw had two blocks to end any momentum the Irish tried to gain, unlike in the fourth game when they rallied from 20-17 down to win by five. "I thought we had found a good combination (going into Game 5) in Adrianna (Stasiuk) serving and being able to score well in Game 4," Brown said. "That was our strategy going into Game 5, but unfortunately it didn't work out well for us." The Badgers (26-6) kept the Irish guessing with their balanced attack. Carlini was one of five Badgers to reach double-digits in kills, with Audra Jeffers and Taylor Reineke next with 16 and 15, respectively, from the middle. "I don't know if we had an explanation, because if we had one, we would have corrected it," Brewster said. "We didn't play well, but we fought well. "We knew coming in they had a very balanced attack and we had to take chances on the outside hitters," Brown said. "They got a lot of looks one-on-one because their middles are strong. Jackie Simpson finished with 67 assists for Wisconsin, and the Badger libero broke her own school mark with 36 digs. For Notre Dame, Meg Henican had 27 digs and Stasiuk had 20. Ashley Tarutis, who had 58 assists, also had 19 digs, and Danielle Herndon, who gave the Badgers fits with her serve, had 10 in her limited time. Tarutis broke the single-season record for assists, which was set by Carey May in 1995. Tarutis finished her career with 1,563. Mallorie Croal and Lauren Kelbley led the Irish with 18 kills each, and Stasiuk had 15. The Badgers, who eliminated the Irish in three games last year, outhit Notre Dame .264 and .179. After that, the only telling stat between the two teams was that Notre Dame had 35 hitting errors to the Badgers' 23.